I eat the watermelon with the spoon and slightly chilled.I WONDER HOW DO YOU EAT WATERMELON?

With watermelon in season I thought it would be fun to make cookies in watermelon colors. It is so Summery and happy.

Last year I discovered checkerboard cookies, I tried them only once using only 4 squares, recipe was nice, but they spread too much and detail wasn't as sharp as I'd like, so I as usual I returned to one of my favorite recipe site ~ http://www.joyofbaking.com ~ and there it was, a perfect recipe for "ice box cookies", They are called ice box cookies, simply because you have to freeze the dough in order to assemble a cookie log that when cut will result in checkerboard design. Usually you see these in chocolate - vanilla flavors /brown - white/, well not today you are not.;-) The ones I made are vanilla butter cookies but with 3 different colors, watermelon colors. The whole trick comes down to having a well chilled dough. Really, they look like something that takes forever to make, but in real, they are pretty easy to make. I think I'll make these for Christmas gifts this year, I can prepare them ahead of time and the checkerboard log can be in the freezer for a few weeks and I can make them fresh anytime I need to.

-Add one egg and continue beating until doubled in volume, about 4 minutes

-Add Vanilla extract, beat until well blended

-On low speed add flour, just until incorporated

-Dough will be soft

-Divide dough into 3 equal parts and color each part, Red, Electric Green, Leaf Green. The dough itself handles really nicely, it is soft and rolls out perfectly. In my case I wanted to make checkerboard using electric green and red dough, green dough I wanted to use for the wrap.Wrap the green dough in plastic wrap and into the fridge, we'll use it later.
Using RED and ELECTRIC GREEN DOUGHS

-Using parchment paper, sprinkle a little bit of flour on the parchment paper, place the dough on the top of it and using palms of your hands roll the dough into a log, about 6 inches long, sprinkle a little bit of flour on the top and place another layer of parchment paper on the top and using a rolling pin roll the dough into a desired thickness. I'd say about less than a 1/4 inch, to achieve equal thickness over the whole layer you can also use a little trick and use wooden paint stirrers, they usually have the right thickness,just place each paint stirrer by both sides of your dough. You want to make sure that when you use your rolling pin these paint stirrers will control the thickness by not allowing your rolling pin to roll the dough any thinner.
-Repeat with another layer. Trim each layer into a rectangle of same size, use a ruler to be exact.
-Place all rolled layers on the baking sheet and into the freezer until hard, about 15-20 minutes.
-Take both red and electric green dough layers out of the freezer
-Peel the top parchment paper of both rolled doughs, brush red dough with a little bit of water and stack the electric green layer on the top of it. Water works as a glue. You can also use little egg white, but I find water works just as well.
- So now you should have a rectangle consisting of bottom red and top electric green.
-You need to cut this rectangle in half, using the ruler, cut the rectangle in half.
- Brush the top electric green layer with a little bit of water and place another half on the top. Since we have electric green on the top you need to place red layer on the top of that electric green. To achieve checkerboard effect we have to alternate colors
-Into the freezer and chill until hard
-Now comes the fun part.

Checkerboard assembly line :

-Place a new parchment or a wax paper on the cutting, or rolling board
-Take your dough out of the freezer and using a ruler mark 1/4 inch on the dough
-Using a sharp knife cut the strips 1/4 inch thick
-Once you have all the strips cut
-Place first strip on the new piece of parchment paper.
For Example :
-You start with the strip that is RED -Electric green-RED-Electric green
-In order to achieve checkerboard pattern we need to alternate colors.
-Brush your first layer with a little bit of water and place a second strip of dough that you cut on the top of your first strip, ensuring alternating colors. Repeat until you are finished with all stripes
-Wrap the log in parchment or plastic wrap and into the freezer.
- here is a wonderful video, assembly starts from 3:10 .
-Last part is to wrap your checkerboard log into a outer layer of green dough.
-Take your green dough out of the freezer and place it on the the top of the lightly floured parchment paper, roll the dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. The size of the rectangle you need to roll the green dough is determined by the size of your checkerboard log, so measure if necessary.
-Peel the top parchment paper from the green dough you just rolled, place the parchment paper you just rolled on on the board and invert the green layer on the top of the parchment paper and peel off the now top parchment paper. Brush the green dough with a tiny bit of water to ensure adhesion with a cookie log.
-Take the cookie log out of the freezer, remove the parchment paper and place the log on your soften green layer of the dough.
- Carefully using palms of your hands and a bottom parchment paper, roll the cookie log into a green layer, pressing slightly.
- Once all the sides are wrapped with green outer layer, trim all the dough. Wrap the log into the plastic wrap and chill until hard.
-If you find that you have too many left overs. What I did I rolled the red dough into a log, I combined both greens I had and rolled it into a layer and I wrapped the red log with green. Wrapped it in parchment paper and put into the freezer.

-Once you are ready to make your cookies, just take the log out of the freezer and using a sharp knife cut the long into about 1/4 cookies or thicker as you wish.
-Bake at 350 F for about 5-8 minutes.

These cookies below are made from some leftovers I had. Just like I explained above.

I made this cute watermelon cocktail umbrella, to make yours you can use template I posted here.

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